Daily Times

We are ruled by a government, that passes laws against social media applications and pays more attention to the non-existent negative impacts of certain games but are hesitant to implement some pertinent laws. We are a part of a toxic society, where victim blaming is a norm and people are more eager to take part in anti-shia protests than to raise voice for the marginalized communities. We are unfortunately ‘protected’ by a system that chooses to provide people justice on the basis of their religion, class and gender. We are those individuals, who barge into the lives of strangers and make them addicted to anti-depressants but will remain silent when it comes to questioning discriminatory authorities. It is indeed a shame on our country’s name that despite committing heinous crimes, criminals roam around freely while the victims face the aftermath and are dishonoured.

To recognize the importance of death penalty and public hangings after a capital crime has been perpetrated, it is imperative to understand that in such cases only sentencing criminals to death is suffice. Retribution honours the victim and consoles their family as well as satisfies their thirst for revenge. The ‘Right to life’ is one of the most salient articles of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its violation should result in noting other than execution of death penalty.

In Pakistan, we have witnessed a myriad of high-priority cases being neglected, by our criminal justice system, which is why criminals have the audacity to repeat even major detestable offences. They are aware of the fact that they won’t be held accountable for their actions and this gives them the courage to act deviant towards the laws. In order to avoid this, death penalty acts a deterrent and reduces the probability of capital crimes because the criminals are less likely to risk their own lives. Capital punishments serve as an example in front of the criminals, who plan to commit such abominable crimes and directly prevents them from doing so especially, when public humiliation is involved.

An alternative proposed to capital punishment is lifetime imprisonment however, the latter has several drawbacks. One of the most significant limitation of lifetime imprisonment is that be it criminals locked up behind the bars or on streets, they remain a source of danger for others. They can be the cause of unrest at the police station and a threat to the lives of other captives. It may become challenging for the police officers to maintain order. Moreover, lifetime imprisonment, which is a maximum of 25 years, is usually reduced to around 10 or 12 years of confinement because of the continuous remissions and appeals. Despite the reduction of years, the time period of a decade or more puts a lot of burden on the government financially to feed the offenders of capital crime and to look after their basic necessities. The revenues instead could have been used for other government projects or for the rehabilitation of juveniles or criminals who have committed minor offences. Often times it is also suggested that criminals guilty of major offences such as capital crimes should also be rehabilitated under professional standards to re-integrate them in the society. However, it is imperative to understand the fact that some criminals are beyond rehabilitation and they may cause several problems during the process itself, while there is still no guarantee to be relied upon that they will turn into a better and safe person for others to be around . Instead, they are more likely to adopt a more barbaric behaviour after living in hostile conditions with other criminals.

Even if we keep this problem aside, the existence of a policy like parole alone is concerning enough for one to be in favour of capital punishment. Parole is the temporary or permanent release of a prisoner before the expiry of a sentence, under certain conditions, laid down by the criminal justice system. While for the time being criminals might be seen as capable enough to be released under parole supervision, there are high chances of them planning for long term escapades or other major offences. Although, a parolee who doesn’t follow the rules risks going back into custody but something harmful done can not be undone by imprisoning the criminal again. This only puts the lives of many citizens in danger but on the other hand side capital punishments avoid such problems.

People also argue against capital punishment, that it is not implemented on everyone and racism as well as elitism enable a lot of privileged people in our society to get away with the punishment however, the destitute are always penalized. While all these arguments are true, it is also not incorrect to say that such issues are symmetric even in the case of lifetime imprisonment or any other alternative that is proposed to capital punishment. The truth being that a lot of potential offenders regard capital punishment as one of the the severest sanction and the only thing that makes it inapplicable is the flawed system of many countries, including Pakistan.